Evernews

It was with great anticipation that we began the planning in the lead-up to our 2017 Platinum Pre School Art Show. This year we decided to use Ken Done as the inspiration for our art show. All the children painted an artwork inspired by the work of iconic Australian artist Ken Done.

The children went on a wonderful journey creating beautiful masterpieces for the Art Show! Over the weeks leading up to Little Creations we looked closely at the work of Ken Done and decided to base our paintings on his art. Every child was guided in each step, learning and developing a range of new skills as they went through intentional teaching. These skills included sponging techniques such as dabbing and swiping, stencilling, colour blending on the canvas and adding texture with impasto. Our educators believe in all children’s capacity to succeed and actively promote children’s learning through worthwhile and challenging experiences. The children were very proud of their finished masterpieces – they named them, discussed where they would keep them and what their favourite parts of them were. The whole process helped children to develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity.

We also discussed how creating art for a charity event was helping to support the children at Ronald McDonald House, allowing our students to develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation.

As we progressed in the lead up to the event we were overwhelmed by the amount community support we received from both our preschool parents and the kind people and businesses who donated to the event. Little did we know at the time, that thanks to the incredible generosity of the 300 guests that attended the event that we would be able to turn this into $48,000 worth of usable money that has now gone into Ronald McDonald House Randwick’s bank account for use in supporting the amazing work that they do every day.

According to the House Manager, the day-to-day operation of the house costs in excess $2,500 and supports over 80 people every day. Many of these people come from distant regional areas for the child’s treatment and can often have to make Ronald McDonald House their “home away from home” for months at a time.

Ronald McDonald House, Randwick relies significantly on donations of money and supplies to simply provide the basic necessities for their residents and is the reason that Platinum does everything that we can to support their needs.

We can’t thank everyone who was involved in the night enough for their time, efforts and donations. We are proud to say that the three art shows we have held over the past 7 years have raised over $150,000.